Over the last decades there has been a steady increase in the representation of women on the political arena. Despite of this there are still fewer women in comparison to men in political organs particularly at the municipal level. It is therefore of great importance to examine which different factors that tend to effect the female representation at this level. Doctor of philosophy at Umeå University Jessika Wide presented in a study from 2000 that the share of women in the municipal councils tended to depend upon cultural, socio-economical and political factors. Other scholars also mean that women have specific interests and therefore are more represented in some areas.

This thesis examines and evaluates user boards in Swedish public schools from a democratic perspective. In order to evaluate whether the democratic values are fulfilled five different democratic ideals are selected to serve as a theoretical fundament. These ideals derive from the Swedish Government Official Reports that preceded the reform of user boards in schools, and are identified as the following: participation, dialogue, trust, democratic schooling and influence. The study is based on cases and involves two schools with user boards and two comparative schools with informal parental influence, so called school advisory boards. The study concludes that the main difference between the two types of parental influence is the level of formality.

The aim of this thesis is to find a statistical model that sort logs according to a predicted modulus of elasticity on the sawn boards. The input parameters for the model are X-ray variables from an X-ray scanner. For some of the log classes sawn at the sawmill it is desirable to have a narrow distribution of modulus of elasticity on the sawn boards. 250 pine logs from five different diameter classes were numbered and followed through the sawmill process. Log data were collected from X-ray and 3-D scanners in the log intake.

? Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use ofthe citizens? proposals??The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if citizens? proposals lead to a broader politicalinfluence. To answer that, I have done a case study about how Karlstad municipal administers citizens? proposals. The research assignment is: Does Karlstad municipal have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens? proposals? The perspective is a democracy perspective and the theory is institutional theory and policy process theory.A selection of citizens? proposals that have arrived to Karlstad municipal between 2008 and 2010 have been studied in detail to analyze how the proposals have been administered and if it matters how the proposals are phrased.

? Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use ofthe citizens? proposals??The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if citizens? proposals lead to a broader politicalinfluence. To answer that, I have done a case study about how Karlstad municipal administers citizens? proposals. The research assignment is: Does Karlstad municipal have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens? proposals? The perspective is a democracy perspective and the theory is institutional theory and policy process theory.A selection of citizens? proposals that have arrived to Karlstad municipal between 2008 and 2010 have been studied in detail to analyze how the proposals have been administered and if it matters how the proposals are phrased.

The definition of an expectation gap is, when the local municipal politician and the audited apprehensions and expectations gets apart about what auditors are going to work with and what they are going to accomplish.Svenska Kommunförbundet writes in their publication Fullmäktige och revisionen (2004) that the communication between the auditors and the audited is important so the final result becomes great. Apart from the communication, the recurring information about auditing is important to increase the knowledge and understanding. Are there expectations on what the auditors are going to review and discover among the audited, when there probably are expectations from the inhabitants on the auditing. This leads us to our purpose of our essay which is to investigate and describe if there exist an expectation gap between the auditors and the social welfare boards in the primary municipality. The method we used to collect our data was a guided telephone interview with 66 persons.

? Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use ofthe citizens? proposals??The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if citizens? proposals lead to a broader politicalinfluence. To answer that, I have done a case study about how Karlstad municipal administers citizens? proposals. The research assignment is: Does Karlstad municipal have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens? proposals? The perspective is a democracy perspective and the theory is institutional theory and policy process theory.A selection of citizens? proposals that have arrived to Karlstad municipal between 2008 and 2010 have been studied in detail to analyze how the proposals have been administered and if it matters how the proposals are phrased.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediatization of Swedish politics on a municipal level. We live in a world were media affects many aspects of life. One of those aspects is the communication between the citizens and the politicians.Our main research questions are:To what extent do politicians communicate with journalists and who initiates these contacts?Do politicians talk to some types of media rather than others?What factors make a politician choose to speak to media?To what extent do leading Swedish municipal politicians use media strategies?To answer these questions we have used various theories to help us understand media?s role oftoday. First we explain the transformation that has taken part in Swedish media over the last century, from political party press to independent media companies.

This report is a commission from the Care Unit of Hässleholm municipal. The purpose is to illuminate what is distinguish for contact persons at sheltered housing in the Municipal of Hässleholm? It contains three questions at issue. What are the expectations of the contact men? What information is given? How is communication between the professional categories working out?The report also contains a background with a brief Swedish history in care of older people.

To ensure that animals are treated well and kept in environments fitted for them, Sweden has animal welfare legislation. One of the requirements in the legislation is that horses are kept in spaces that has a ceiling height that measures at least 1,5 * the height at the withers of the horse, but always a minimum of 2,2 m. But a minor derivation can be accepted from these measurements if certain criteria are fulfilled. If the ceiling height is to low the ventilation in the stable can be negatively affected. It can also affect the posture of the horse and may increase the risk of the horse being injured.

The Swedish system of environmental quality objectives is a so-called MBO, Management By Objective and has the purpose to guide the Swedish society towards sustainable ecological development. The system involves the whole society from the parliament and the government down to individual citizens. At the regional level, it is the county administrative boards that are responsible for the work with the system of environmental objectives. At the County Administrative Board of Västmanland County, it is the environmental unit who is in charge of work with the environmental objectives and they want input for how to improve their work with the environmental objectives, both internally at the Administrative Board and externally with external parties.The main purpose and goal of the study is to present the work of four other county administrative boards regarding their work with the environmental quality objectives and to identify external parties? opinions of how they want the County Board of Västmanland county to work with them in this matter.The work is designed as a case study of four county councils, where the environmental objectives coordinators at the four county administrative boards were interviewed about their work with environmental quality objectives.

In this essay I examine how a municipal- and an independent upper secondary school compare to the ideal types the Company and the Political organization and how that affects the school practise as it?s described in policy documents. The conclusions are that the municipal school on a number of variables correlate to the ideal type the Political organization. At the same time the school reforms of the 1990s are considered as an intention to ?companylize? the municipal school and a number of tendencies how that have affected the municipal school are shown.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to describe and analyse the origin and development of the municipal library of Västervik. There have been four previous libraries and our examination starts in 1859 with the foundation of a parish library. The other forerunners were a working-class movement library and two libraries in the International Orders of Good Templars. Before the merger of the libraries there were discussions in the municipal council, among the working-class movement and in the IOGT.

Today there is a large consensus about the importance of Swedish schools providingconditions enabling students to develop the ability to manage and learn through information technologies (IT). The goal of this study was to describe and examine how national education goals for the use of IT transformed into municipal IT-strategies for the school. A content analysis was conducted of thirty-eight municipal IT-strategies collected from Swedish municipal websites on the Internet. The content in the municipal IT-strategies was compared with the content in both the Swedish education act and the national curriculum. The results showed that the content in the Swedish education act and the national curriculum in fact was translated into municipal IT strategies, but that the range of strategies concerning technology, pedagogy and content in relation to IT was broad.

This master thesis investigates how the county administrative boards communicate the regional risk and vulnerability analyses to municipalities in Sweden. Information has been gathered through a survey and through a case study involving three county administrative boards. The results revealed that there are possibilities to improve or develop the communication in all the county administrative boards. The information channels are often written or web based, these channels promote one way communication rather than a dialog. The thesis gives suggestion on how to work out a strategy for a more effective communication, the case study also gives ideas on how a county administrative board can work with communication..